(Bend, OR) – The two situations are most likely not related at all but Deschutes Brewery is taking a proactive approach in handling this new Black Butte Porter XXII issue.

Deschutes Brewery’s Black Butte XXII was released this past weekend. This year, things are a bit different. Things were a-ok on the keg front but Brewpublic reports that the brewery has disposed of Black Butte XXII bottles due to quality issues:

“[…] this was due to an issue with the cocoa butter in the beer that coagulated in the bottle and had to be disposed of. This also raises the fear of rancidity as well. At this time, it has not been reported as to how much this mishap has cost Oregon’s largest brewery. Kegs of Black Butte XXII, however, will be available, yet limited to the Deschutes pubs in order to regulate the quality and to assure no problems arise.”

This is the second issue to arise in a week around Deschutes’ Reserve Series. Though rumors first swirled this spring, it wasn’t until last week that many reported isolated incidents of contamination with their bottles of Deschutes The Abyss 2009.

Deschutes CEO, Gary Fish, responded:

“For everyone’s information, we have, and are, looking into this. The samples we have tried here have been perfect (always kept at 45 degrees). We sourced some samples from local grocery stores where they have been sitting at room temperature for 7 months. On those bottles, there was a slight detection of elevated acidity which we are looking in to. Of those sitting at the table (Brewmaster, QA Manager, Lab Manager, myself, COO, etc.) none would have refused or returned the beer if found in the marketplace (and this is the most critical group).

As always, if someone has a bad experience and wishes to return product, we’d love to get ahold of some so we can check it out ourselves. Of course, we will buy any of it back if anyone wishes. After we get lab reports back, if there is anything to report, I will chime in again and let everyone know.”

It’s cases like these that make one wonder if/when Beer Advocate or RateBeer will add a vintage field to its beer review software. Time will tell.